Department of English

Illuminating Inner Life: A Comparison of Virginia Woolf’s To The Lighthouse and Arthur Schnitzler’s Fräulein Else

Marie-Helen Rosalie Stahl BA Essay Literature Spring, 2016 Supervisor: Irina Rasmussen Goloubeva

Abstract

In the early 20th century, authors increasingly experimented with literary techniques

striving towards two common aims: to illumine the inner life of their protagonists and

to diverge from conventional forms of literary representations of reality. This shared

endeavour was sparked by changes in society: industrialisation, developments in

psychology, and the gradual decay of empires, such as the Victorian (1837–1901) and

the Austro-Hungarian (1867–1918). Those developments yielded a sense of

uncertainty and disorientation, which led to a so-called “turn [inwards]” in the arts

(Micale 2). In this context, this essay examines Virginia Woolf’s (1882–1941)

development of her literary technique by comparing To the Lighthouse (1927), written

in free indirect discourse, with Arthur Schnitzler’s (1862–1932) Fräulein Else (1924),

written in interior monologue. Instead of applying Freud’s theories of consciousness, I

will demonstrate how empiricist psychology informed and partly helped shape the

two narrative techniques by referring to Ernst Mach’s (1838–1916) idea of the

unstable self, and William James’ (1842–1910) concept of the stream of

consciousness. Furthermore, I will show that there is a continuous progression of

literary ideas from Schnitzler’s Viennese fin-de-siècle connected to impressionism,

towards Woolf’s Bloomsbury aesthetics connected to Paul Cézanne’s post-

impressionist logic of sensations. In addition to that, I address how the women’s

movement, starting in the end of the 19th century, inspired Woolf and Schnitzler to

utilise their techniques as a means of revealing women’s restricted position in society.

Methodologically, I will analyse the two novels’ narrative techniques applying close

reading and by that point out their differences and similarities in connection to the

above-mentioned theories as well as the two author’s literary approaches. I argue that

this comparison demonstrates that modernist literary techniques of representing

interiority evolved from interior monologue towards free indirect discourse. This

progression also implicates that modernism can be seen as a continuum reaching back

to the fin-de-siècle and culminating in the 1920s.

Keywords: Virginia Woolf; Arthur Schnitzler; stream of consciousness; narrative techniques; empiricist psychology; fin-de-siècle; Bloomsbury aesthetics; Modernism

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In the light of a modernist Zeitgeist, characterised by a shift in emphasis towards

representing “the inner workings of the mind” (Olson 43), this essay will address

Virginia Woolf’s (1882–1941) development of her narrative technique by comparing

To the Lighthouse (1927), written in free indirect discourse, to Fräulein Else (1924),1

written in interior monologue, by the Viennese author and playwright Arthur

Schnitzler (1862–1932). Schnitzler belonged to a “young generation of [fin-de-siècle

Viennese] writers of the 1890s” (Thompson 15). He is “often credited with

developing the stream of consciousness as a narrative technique” (Lorenz 195),

having been the first German-speaking artist to apply “sustained interior monologue”

in his literary works, firstly, Lieutnant Gustl in 1900 (Stoehr 27). I argue that this

comparison demonstrates that stream of consciousness literature evolved from interior

monologue towards free indirect discourse. This progression of modernist narrative

techniques also implicates that modernism needs to be seen as a continuum reaching

back to the turn of the century, beginning in fin-de-siècle culture and culminating in

the 1920s, rather than representing a clear break from previous artistic movements

and incepting around 1910, as claimed by Woolf in “Character in Fiction” in 1924

(38).

The comparison is particularly interesting because even though Woolf was

familiar with Schnitzler’s works, they have never been compared before. In fact,

Woolf saw several of Schnitzler’s plays on stage and even wrote in a letter to Virginia

Isham in 1933: “We enjoyed [Fräulein Else] greatly—I don’t think it’s a good play,

but it was a very interesting experiment. I don’t think you can do thinking as well as 1 This essay uses the following English translation of the Austrian novella originally written in German: Schnitzler, Fräulein Else (Pushkin Press: London, 2012).

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speaking on the stage […]” (qtd. in Humm 444).2 Additionally, in the early 1920s,

several of both writers’ works were published and reviewed in the American

modernist magazine The Dial, for which Woolf’s husband occasionally translated

foreign literary works, and which she herself highly respected, noting in her diary on

May 15th, 1921, that “The Dial is everything honest vigorous and advanced […]”

(118).

In order to lay the foundations for the comparison, the essay will commence

with briefly outlining the two authors’ theoretical backgrounds. Due to Schnitzler

preceding Woolf, the essay will firstly elaborate on his connection to fin-de-siècle

Vienna and impressionism. Aiming to demonstrate continuities as well as further

developments in literature from Schnitzler to Woolf, I will then illustrate Woolf’s

connection to Bloomsbury aesthetics as well as her interest in post-impressionism.

Moreover, even though most previous research concerning modernist literature and

the representation of consciousness deploys Freudian theories, this essay will instead

briefly elucidate the empiricists Ernst Mach’s and William James’s influence on early

20th century literature since Woolf as well as Schnitzler predominantly rejected

Freudian aesthetics. In connection to that, I will examine the history and emergence of

the narrative techniques interior monologue and free indirect discourse in relation to

the term stream of consciousness.

Also, since both, To the Lighthouse and Fräulein Else, illumine the inner

world of their female protagonists in contrast to their external world, revealing the

social constraints that women face in society, I will show how the women’s

movement, emerging in the end of the 19th century, motivated the authors to choose

their specific narrative techniques.

In the last two sections, applying close reading, I will thoroughly analyse

Schnitzler’s Fräulein Else focusing on its narrative technique and its links to the

literary and psychological edifices of Schnitzler’s time. Subsequently, I will compare

Woolf’s use of free indirect discourse in To the Lighthouse to Schnitzler’s use of

2 In The Edinburgh Companion to Virginia Woolf and the Arts, Maggie Humm claims that Woolf refers to Schnitzler’s Fräulein Else (444) while the editor of Woolf’s letters Vol. 5, Nigel Nicolson, references Schnitzler’s play La Ronde (Reigen) (1920/1903) (150). However, since Woolf states, ”I don’t think you can do thinking as well as speaking on the stage,” I argue that Woolf could not have been referring to Schnitzler’s La Ronde because this play does not unveil the thoughts of its characters but ”consists of ten dialogues” (Alter 52). Fräulein Else, on the other hand, illumines the inner life of its protagonist and was, in fact, played on stage in 1933 in London (Uglow 30). Therefore, I agree with Maggie Humm and connect Woolf’s comment to Schnitzler’s Fräulein Else.

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interior monologue, carving out differences and similarities as well as their motivation

of utilising their specific ways of narration.

From fin-de-siècle Vienna to Bloomsbury London

Even though To the Lighthouse and Fräulein Else have been written roughly at the

same time, the two literary works cannot be compared with each other without

bearing in mind the different social, cultural, and literary contexts out of which they

emerged. Due to Schnitzler chronologically preceding Woolf, the subsequent section

of the essay will commence with outlining Schnitzler’s theoretical background in

Viennese fin-de-siècle culture. Bridging over to Woolf, I will demonstrate how one

can detect a continuous trajectory and development of related literary and artistic

ideas from one author’s conceptual approach to the other’s.

Schnitzler was born in 1862 in Vienna and, firstly, studied at the Vienna

School of Medicine to become a doctor. In 1887, he started working at a psychiatric

clinic (Thompson 13), and, between the late 1880s and early 1890s, was an editor and

contributor “to the [Viennese] medical press” (Lorenz 299). In his journalistic

writings, Schnitzler focused on “mental and nervous illnesses,” particularly

examining “the effects of external pressures on the fragile self” (Lorenz 230, 238).

When his father died in 1892, Schnitzler laid down his work as a doctor and started

focusing entirely on his primary interest, literary writing (Thompson 14). In the

1890s, he became part of a “young generation of writers” called Junges Wien (Young

Vienna), who regularly came together in small “coffee-houses” to discuss literature

(Thompson 13). This literary movement is predominantly affiliated with the fin-de-

siècle, a term coined in France during the 1880s, literally meaning “end-of-the-

century,” and characterised by a rejection of naturalism and, instead, a turn towards

impressionism (Koelb and Downing 139). The Young Vienna Circle disapproved of

naturalist literature due to its “lack of psychological insight,” and inability to

represent reality as it is (Koelb and Downing 149, 140). In contrast, they favoured a

representation of the “inward aspects of life” (Thompson 15). This so-called “turn

[inwards]” that characterises impressionism was reinforced by rapid changes in

society (Micale 2). Urbanisation led to an increasing anonymity in everyday life and

the gradual decay of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, from the end of the 19th century

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until its collapse in 1918, created a sense of “social unrest” and instability (Koelb and

Downing 144, 296). This, however, also inspired many artists to experiment with new

forms of narration that emphasise the “interior landscape” of their characters in the

light of this changed world (Koelb and Downing 144). In this regard, the Young

Vienna writers were especially interested in examining how the impressions of the

external world affect the inner psychological world of an individual (Stoehr 23).

This development in literature was accompanied and influenced by

simultaneous developments in psychology. Previous research often connects

Schnitzler with Freud since both were doctors in Vienna at the same time and

evidentially knew each other.3 However, Schnitzler was, in fact, a strong critic of

Freudian theories viewing them as prone to not only “[becoming] symptomatic, […]

[ignoring] the participation of the theorist in [the] theory,” but also “overly

deterministic” (Micale 304, 312). Instead, according to Ingo R. Stoehr, Schnitzler did

not orientate his literary themes and techniques towards Freudian theories but

developed them based on his own medical education (26), and through the influence

of authors such as Édouard Dujardin (38), which I will come back to later in this

section. Since Schnitzler shared his rejection of Freudian theory with Woolf, who

claimed in “Freudian Fiction” (1920) that it “simplifies rather than complicates,

detracts rather than enriches” (Ryan 19), I will instead outline the influence of

empiricist psychology of the late 19th century on the two authors’ literary writings.

It is widely acknowledged that empiricists of the late 19th century viewed

reality as evident only in “our consciousness”—hence, that they denied an existence

of a reality “’behind’ or ‘beyond’ [our] senses” (Ryan 2).4 A key figure for the

Viennese fin-de-siècle in this context was the Austrian philosopher-psychologist Ernst

Mach (1838–1916). In Analysis of Sensations (1886), Mach questioned established

ideas about personality, identity, and reality, claiming that “our senses” are the only

evidence “for the existence of something” (Ryan 2). Furthermore, he viewed the self

as “a mass of sensations,” by which he meant that the self cannot be seen as separate

from its environment (Ryan 12). Thus, according to Mach, the self “is what it sees,”

and encompasses “everything […] within the individual field of perception” (Ryan 9).

3 It is known that Freud praised Schnitzler’s work and even called him his “literary doppelgänger” (Stoehr 27). For studies connecting Schnitzler and Freud see for instance Thompson 43–46; Koelb and Downing 149–152; Furst 19–37. 4 On Empiricist psychology in relation to modernist literature, see Ryan, especially her introduction and chapter 1.

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This also implies that identity, reality, and the self are situated in a constant flux,

being “ever-changing subjective ideas” (Thompson 16). He clarified his ideas by

drawing a picture, in which he illustrates “a one-eyed vision of himself,” only

depicting the lower part of his body and what lies in his subjective field of vision

(Ryan 9). Additionally, by stating that “the ego is not a definite, unalterable, sharply

bounded unity” (Ryan 12), Mach defined one aspect of the turn-of-the-century

Zeitgeist—the “crisis of the ego and identity”5—which was especially important to

the Austrian fin-de-siècle writers, and which forced artists to rethink their

representation of reality and the subject in their works.

The emergence of empiricist theories and the rejection of naturalism coincided

and stood in a reciprocal relation with impressionism in literature. In accordance with

empiricist ideas, impressionists “assumed that the human mind is exposed to a

continuous sensual perception of the forever-changing world” (Stoehr 22). Therefore,

traditional narration with an omniscient observer describing “an objective, natural

world” (Micale 89) was no longer suitable since now one believed in a multitude of

realities created through the “subjective experience of consciousness” (Bartkuviené

8). Thus, authors, such as Schnitzler, started to experiment with new narrative

techniques that focused on revealing the inner world of fictional characters—their

“deepest thoughts and feelings” (Lorenz 5)—which consequently resulted in “a

reduction of […] plot [and] action” (Koelb and Downing 140).

However, whereas Schnitzler’s fin-de-siècle contemporaries exclusively

focused on “the more inwards aspects of life” in their literary works, Schnitzler used

his narratives to also exert social criticism (Thompson 15). For instance, through the

interior monologue in Lieutnant Gustl (1900), Schnitzler was able to reveal the

“hollow” character of Viennese military’s “world of [honour],” presenting it through

the subjective consciousness and perception of the military officer, Lieutnant Gustl

(Stoehr 27). Thereby, the novella caused such a scandal that Schnitzler was stripped

of his own status as an officer in the Viennese military for having “defamed the

Austrian army” (Stoehr 27). Schnitzler refined this narrative technique later in his

novella Fräulein Else, the focus of this analysis, which depicts the Viennese

bourgeois world through the consciousness of the young girl Else and sheds light on

the social constraints women faced in Viennese fin-de-siècle society. 5 For a more encompassing explanation regarding the turn-of-the-century Zeitgeist in German and Austrian literature, see Koelb and Downing 143–144.

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Regarding Schnitzler’s narrative technique, the scholar Dagmar C. G. Lorenz

stated that through Lieutnant Gustl Schnitzler “is often credited with developing the

stream of consciousness as a narrative technique” (195). Here, however, one needs to

be careful since the narrative technique of the interior monologue is not an invention

of Schnitzler. Instead, as previous research has shown,6 interior monologue was first

used by the French impressionist Édouard Dujardin (1861–1949) in his novel Les

Lauriers sont coupés (1888), which then influenced Schnitzler as well as, later on,

James Joyce in Ulysses (1922) to utilise it as their narrative technique (Weninger 38). Furthermore, also the term stream of consciousness has to be used cautiously

in a literary context since it is primarily a psychological term coined by the American

William James (1842–1910) in Principles of Psychology (1890) (Stoehr 22). James,

another influential 19th-century empiricist, who stood in personal correspondence with

Mach, transported the European empiricists’ ideas about identity, consciousness, and

reality to the English-speaking world (Ryan 12). Mach and James agreed that

thoughts are “fluid”; however, while Mach saw the self as “a mass of sensation,

loosely bundled together,” James’s view was less abstract and more pragmatic (Ryan

12–13). According to Judith Ryan, James was of the opinion that “if we feel thought

to be unified and the self to be continuous then this is how a psychologist should also

conceive of them” (13). This notion of unity defines his famous term stream of

consciousness, in which thought “does not appear to itself chopped up in bits,” but as

a continuous flow and sensation in the human mind (James 155).

In literature, the stream of consciousness can be rendered in various modes of

narration—i.e. interior monologue and free indirect discourse. That is because,

according to Robert Humphrey, it is not defined by a particular technique, but by

having as its subject “the consciousness of one or more characters” (2). In Le

Monologue intérieur (1931), Dujardin defines interior monologue as “speech before

any logical organization, reproducing this thought as it comes into being […]; in its

form, it is [realised] through sentences in direct speech reduced to a syntactic

minimum” (qtd. in Huebner 58). In other words, interior monologue uses a first-

person narrative through which the reader dives into the character’s consciousness,

following the latter’s seemingly unselected “associative thought process,” which is

expressed in present tense (Stoehr 23). Free indirect style, or free indirect discourse,

6 The history of interior monologue has been subject to various studies. See, for instance, Stoehr 22–23.

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on the other hand, is written in third-person and past tense and gives voice to a

narrator as well as one or more fictional character’s/characters’ consciousness

(Mikulan and Legac 215). By applying this technique, the narration can shift from

“indirectly reported thoughts [to] direct unedited transcription of consciousness”

(Dahl 11). Therefore, one can speak of a “dual voice” through which different points

of view can be presented and which thereby enables the writer to construct a plurality

of reality (Mikulan and Legac 215). However, it is crucial to note that, unlike interior

monologue, free indirect discourse was not invented in the 19th century but was

already used by, for instance, Jane Austen in Pride and Prejudice (1813) and the

French author Gustav Flaubert (1821–1880), before Woolf applied it in To the

Lighthouse in 1927 (Stoehr 23).

Similarly to Schnitzler, Woolf was of the opinion that literature should focus

on the “dark places of psychology”—that it should illumine how myriad impressions

affect “an ordinary mind on an ordinary day” (“Modern Fiction” 11, 9). Her novel To

the Lighthouse (1927) exemplifies how she utilised free indirect discourse in order to

reveal those “inner workings of our minds” (Olson 43). However, before moving to

the actual analysis of Woolf’s novel, I will first give an overview of Woolf’s literary

and artistic environment in Bloomsbury London, focusing on how, as well as why, her

ideas on reality, literary technique and representation partly intersect with

Schnitzler’s.

Having been part of the Bloomsbury Group in London, Woolf was surrounded

by highly influential artists all experimenting with new techniques of expression in

the arts. Interestingly though, Woolf’s aesthetics in writing were predominantly

shaped by values of the visual rather than the literary arts (Briggs 180). This is the

case because Woolf was highly influenced not only by her sister Vanessa Bell, a

painter herself, but also by Vanessa’s husband, the art philosopher Clive Bell and,

especially, the post-impressionist painter Roger Fry—all part of the Bloomsbury

Group (Briggs 180). Like Schnitzler, Woolf and her contemporaries felt that artists

need to break free from the restrictions of accepted conventional forms in literature in

order to be able to “pursue a form that [resembles the artist’s] mental reality”

(Bartkoviené 8). In fact, Woolf believed that there can not be the one narrative form

since, as noted by her in “The Decay of Essay Writing” as early as 1905, “any new

‘peculiar substance’ implies a new form of narrative: you can say in this shape what

you cannot with equal fitness say in any other” (4). In this search for new artistic

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representations, the Bloomsbury Group was fascinated with post-impressionist art. In

late 1910, Fry, Clive Bell and Desmond McCarthy launched an art exhibition,

presenting paintings by, among others, the French post-impressionist painter Paul

Cézanne (1839–1906) (Humm 38). Cézanne was a highly influential figure for Woolf

and Fry, who informed their ideas about artistic representation, sensation and

perception. Woolf even saw this exhibition as a turning point in society, stating in

“Character in Fiction” (1924) that “on or about December 1910 human character

changed” (38).

Like the empiricists, Mach and James, Cézanne was concerned with the

problem of subjectivity that arose due to the idea that reality and the self are not stable

entities, but rather that reality depends on the observer, whose self is itself of “fluid”

and “unbounded” nature (Ryan 12). In respect to this, Cézanne is known for having

invented new techniques in painting that elude “conventional perspective” in favour

of creating a “multiplicity of angles at once” (Ryan 93). In his paintings, he aimed to

merge subjective perspective with a “composite of several views” (Kern 142). In this

regard, he developed his concept of the logic of sensations, used to “describe thinking

in art,” and it is here where one can also detect similarities between Mach and

Cézanne (Uhlmann et al x). Both saw the self as constituted by a flux of sensations;

however, while in Mach’s sense, sensations are merely reflected passively by the self,

Cézanne’s concept of the logic of sensations is characterised by an active interaction

between the self and the world it perceives, in which the mind plays an integral part.

That is, when a painter perceives sensations with the eye, he/she does not simply

reflect them onto the canvas, but rather the painter’s mind first makes sense of the

sensations by organising them before he/she makes them visible (Uhlmann x–xi). The

ultimate aim of this process is to create a visible representation of sensations so that

they in turn “might be sensed by a viewer” (Uhlmann et al x–xi). Even though this

process is highly subjective, critics in fact praise Cézanne for the “objective

character” of his works, arguing that precisely through the subjectivity both of the

painter and the viewer and the multitude of perspectives, objectivity is being achieved

(Strathausen 216).

Woolf read the biography of Cézanne (Humm 3), and just as the latter aimed

to transfer and illustrate the sensations experienced by the painter to the canvas,

Woolf aimed to “record the atoms as they fall upon the mind […]; [to] trace the

pattern […] which each sight or incident scores upon the consciousness” in her

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literary writing (“Modern Fiction” 9). This quote shows striking similarities with

Cézanne’s ideas as well as empiricist thought of the late 19th century. The term

“atom” echoes Mach’s view of unbounded sensory impressions and that they “fall

upon the mind” implies James’ notion of thought as a continuous flow. It is crucial to

note that Virginia Woolf was also fascinated by Bertrand Russell’s logical atomism

developed in 1911, which “continued the empiricist tradition in Britain” (Ryan 190).

Russell assumed that the external world is, in fact, a construction made out of the

“reports [of] various [people’s] ‘internal’, [subjective] sense-data” (Gamwell 214).

This, in turn, shows parallels to Cézanne’s construction of one painting through the

combination of multiple subjective sensations. Additionally, the quote implies that

Woolf was also highly interested in how the external world—“each sight or

incident”—affects the individual consciousness.

In her experimentations, Woolf tried to find a literary form and technique that

would allow her to merge all of those ideas on sensation, reality and consciousness

together and, like Schnitzler, first turned towards interior monologue in her first short

story The Mark on the Wall (1917) (Duban 102). However, aiming to illustrate

various points of views and thereby being able to demonstrate that there is not one

stable reality (Henry 90), Woolf felt that interior monologue with only one

protagonist does not successfully cater to her needs. Therefore, she continued

experimenting and eventually found the literary technique capable of combining the

above-mentioned ideas, namely, free indirect discourse. The scholar Holly Henry

described this progression of Woolf’s techniques as a “re-scaling from a microscopic

to a macroscopic point of view” (90), which shows, according to Ann Banfield, that

Woolf’s “method of multiple perspectives is [her] route to wider knowledge” (qtd. in

Henry 90). In effect, those multiple characters allowed her to create a multiplicity of

angles, like Cézanne did in his paintings, and it additionally enabled her to shed light

on the different lives and thoughts of women and men in their different positions in

society, which is a major preoccupation in To the Lighthouse.

In this regard, Schnitzler and Woolf had a similar aim—to not only illumine

individual thought processes, but also to reveal the social constraints women face in

society. Woolf is widely known as a feminist author through, for instance, her

treatises A Room of One’s Own (1929) and Three Guineas (1938), in which she

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addresses the limited possibilities women have in patriarchal society.7 In To the

Lighthouse, Woolf unveils the lives and thoughts of different women in society, for

instance, a mother from the Victorian generation and a young post-impressionist

painter. Through that she does not only reveal the inequality they face in society but

also a progressive development towards women’s emancipation. Schnitzler, on the

other hand, emphasises the entrapment of women in fin-de-siècle society through the

individual fate of his protagonist in Fräulein Else (1924) and shows how society’s

suppressive structures lead to her committing suicide.

Due to both authors addressing feminist issues, I argue that the Women’s

Liberation Movement, starting in the last half of the 19th century, also motivated them

to apply stream of consciousness techniques. In 1848, the first Women’s Rights

Convention took place in Seneca Falls, New York, which called for equal rights for

women, particularly, their right to vote (Pascal 128). By 1900, the demand for gender

equality had spread to Europe and around the world resulting in the foundation of, for

instance, the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU) in Britain (Marder 18).

Even though the women’s movement did not gain a lot of political attention at first, it

raised awareness for women’s issues in society and, consequently, inspired artists to

react to it. In fin-de-siècle Vienna, women had to obey a certain social conduct, which

forbade them to express their discontent with their position in society publicly, and

women’s situation, particularly in Victorian England, as well as later during the

1920s, was not very different (Lorenz 314). The stream of consciousness techniques

enabled authors to give women a voice by revealing their thoughts in contrast to their

external world, which would otherwise not be possible by applying a traditional

narrative with an omniscient observer.

All in all, as I have shown, one can detect a trajectory of similar artistic and

literary ideas from Schnitzler’s fin-de-siècle Vienna towards Woolf’s Bloomsbury

London. The influence of empiricist psychology of the late 19th century can be traced

in both authors’ works and this influence led to both authors experimenting with

stream of consciousness techniques—Schnitzler as early as in the year 1900. Thus, the

aim of depicting human inner life in literature and the rejection of conventional

literary forms, which characterises modernism, can be traced back to the turn of the

century and evolved further through, for instance, the post-impressionist exhibition in 7 To read further on Virginia Woolf and Feminism, see Marder, especially his introduction and chapter 1.

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1910. I claim that this development of modernism is exemplified by a movement from

interior monologue, as represented by Schnitzler, towards free indirect discourse, as

represented by Woolf. What follows is an analysis of Schnitzler’s Fräulein Else in

terms of its narrative technique. Subsequently I will compare Woolf’s use of free

indirect discourse in To the Lighthouse to Schnitzler’s use of interior monologue,

focusing on differences and similarities between the techniques as well as

demonstrating how both authors used them as a means of social criticism.

Saying the Unsayable via Interior Monologue in Schnitzler’s

Fräulein Else

In Volume 73 of The Dial, July-December 1922—one of the most important and

influential modernist magazines during the 1920s—the Viennese author Richard

Specht dedicated one article directly to Schnitzler, in which he praises him for his

contributions to the international literature and theatre scene. Specht describes

Schnitzler as an exceptional author, who foregrounds the “inner processes [of his

characters],” and claims him to be “one of the few who know how to say [the]

unsayable” (244).

Even though Specht wrote this in 1922, his words could have also been an

apposite remark on Schnitzler’s novella Fräulein Else, published in 1924. Written

entirely in interior monologue, Schnitzler affords the reader an unobstructed view into

the interior world of Else T. The novella depicts one evening in Else’s life while she

is vacationing with her aunt Emma at the Hotel Fratazza located in the Austrian

holiday resort San Martino di Castrozza. Although Else only mentions that it is the 3rd

of September (Schnitzler 15), it is widely established that the novella plays in pre-war

Austro-Hungarian society around 1896/1897.8 On this day, Else receives an express

letter from her mother informing her that her family is in great financial troubles due

to her father, a famous Viennese lawyer, having embezzled 30,000 gulden of trust

money. Stating that this is the only way to save her family’s reputation and her father

8 Else mentions that the only time she has ever been in love was ”with Van Dyck” when she was thirteen (Schnitzler 9). The German scholar Prof. Dr. Achim Aurnhammer reconstructed that Else must have meant the famous tenor Ernest van Dyck, who gained prominence with the performance of Massenet’s opera Manon at the Viennese Burgtheater in 1890 (502). Since Else is nineteen years old in the novella, it must play around 1896/97.

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from imprisonment, her mother asks Else to approach the family friend and wealthy

art-dealer, Herr von Dorsday—who coincidentally resides at the same hotel as her—to

lend her family the money. Despite feeling deeply ashamed, she approaches Herr von

Dorsday, who consents to lend the money, however, binds it to a disturbing condition:

he wants to view Else’s naked body. Consequently, Else finds herself in the dilemma

of saving her family or losing her integrity and self-worth. In addition, Else receives a

second telegram informing her that the sum increased to 50,000 gulden. Refusing to

fulfil Herr von Dorsday’s wish, Else decides to bare herself in front of all hotel guests.

Subsequently, Else faints and is brought into her room, where she commits suicide by

taking veronal.

The narrative’s construction shows that Schnitzler, in accordance with

impressionist paradigms, reduced plot and action in order to place the focus on how

external forces—the express letter, Herr von Dorsday’s demand and fin-de-siècle

society in total—affect the psyche of his protagonist. In the following, I will focus on

the following two aspects: how Schnitzler contrasts Else’s internal world with how

she presents herself externally, and how her sense of self is intrinsically linked to how

she perceives her environment.

Since the novella is written in interior monologue, the reader experiences

Else’s emotions, thought processes and her social environment directly through her

voice:

Well now, Fräulein Else, can’t you make up your mind to read that letter? It needn’t have anything to do with Father. Mightn’t it be something about my brother? Perhaps he’s got engaged to one of his flames. A chorus girl or a girl in a glove shop. […] He told me a great deal about someone called Lotte […]. And since then he’s never told me anything more…Why, the letter’s open, and I never noticed that I was opening it. (15)9

Since Else’s thoughts are rendered in present tense and first-person, the reader

witnesses them as if they were his/her own and, hence, depends exclusively on Else’s

subjective one-dimensional perspective on her surroundings. Else’s thoughts are

presented as a continuous stream, whose direction is steered by, in this case, Else’s

speculations about the letter’s content. Strengthening the flowing character of the

narrative, ellipses are recurrently used in the novella; here, the ellipse “he’s never told

me anything more…” depicts how Else emerges from her world of thought when she 9 Hereafter, if not noted otherwise, all quotes are taken from Schnitzler, Fräulein Else (Pushkin Press: London, 2012).

Stahl 13

reaches an impasse in her speculations. Since this drift deep into Else’s thoughts

happens in a very subtle way by a chain of associations—starting with the letter and

leading to her brother and speculations about his romantic life—both, Else and the

reader, are equally surprised to discover that she must have opened the letter

unconsciously. That Else loses herself deeply in her thoughts, reinforces the

impression that the reader experiences Else’s unselected “associative thought process”

(Stoehr 23). This additionally lends a greater authenticity to Else’s character and

enables the reader to identify with her.

Furthermore, since the focus on Else’s stream of thought brings forth her most

personal sensations and perceptions, the reader only experiences Else’s subjective

psychological sense of time, which challenges the reader to orientate himself/herself

in the novella. Only a few direct time designations, such as “[in] an hour it’ll be time

for dinner” (23), allow the reader to receive an impression on the actual clock-time

within the novella. Otherwise, Schnitzler recurrently uses nature to illustrate the

progression of time. For instance, while Else thinks, right before opening the express

letter: “A heavenly evening. […]… There’s a red glow over the [mountain] Cimone”

(10), she states, after she has read and thought about it: “It’s nearly dark now. Night.

The dead of night” (23). Through those remarks on nature, the reader can infer that

the sun was about to set shortly before Else read the letter and that probably thirty to

sixty minutes must have gone by while she read it and afterwards contemplated on

how to react to it. Hence, Schnitzler predominantly highlights psychological time, the

time connected to Else’s thoughts, and uses nature as well as a few direct time

designations, thus clock-time, more as a formal device in order to give structure to the

narrative and not leave the reader disoriented in the dark.

However, nature does not only serve as a representative of time but also as a

mirror for Else’s sensations. The further Else falls into depression and despair, the

darker she perceives nature: “Everything is gigantic. The mountains, too. Terrifyingly

gigantic. They’ve never been so black before” (63). At this point, Else has already

learnt about Herr von Dorsday’s demand. Else’s perception of the mountains, looking

“terrifyingly gigantic,” reflects her fear as well as sensation of being emotionally

crushed by the dilemma she is in. This interwovenness of perception and sensation

evokes Mach’s theory of sensation. It shows that Else’s self is not separate from but

intrinsically intertwined with her environment; thus, that she “is what [she] sees” and

that her self is constructed out of her sense impressions (Ryan 9). This implies also

Stahl 14

that Else’s sense of self is constantly influenced by her environment and is therefore

subject to constant change, so that it can even be destroyed by external forces—as is

the case in this novella. Additionally, her perception of nature caters as a

foreshadowing of the future. The “red glow over the Cimone” in the beginning

anticipates Else’s crisis; the “dead of night” foreshadows Else’s suicide and the deep

blackness of the Cimone reflects Else’s hopeless future and eventually her death.

Hence, the recurring element of nature creates not only an overall climactic structure

that enables the reader to orientate himself/herself despite the narrative’s subjective

perspective, but also implies the unstable nature of the human self. Moreover, it

reflects the increasing tension cording up Else, which leads towards the climax of the

novella: her suicide.

Nevertheless, the interior monologue does not only serve as a formal

technique to voice Else’s psychological world, but also and with much greater force,

caters as a symbol for Else’s confined and restricted life as a woman in patriarchal

society.10 When Else learns about her family’s misery, she is torn between anger due

to her parents putting her in this shameful situation, and feeling the urge to be loyal

and save her family from financial and social ruin (20–31). Else desperately tries to

find an alternative solution to asking Herr von Dorsday for help. However, Else’s

mother appealed to her in the letter not to approach any relatives, asking Else not to

“let Aunt Emma notice anything” (19). In addition to that, Else is aware of the fact

that marriage is the only way to secure her future. Hence, if she reveals her family’s

misery to the public, her status as a “young lady from [a] good family” will be

jeopardised since in the conservative and patriarchal society she lives in no

respectable man “would marry a swindler’s daughter” (26–25). Moreover, mentally

crying out “Oh God, Why haven’t I any money? Why haven’t I learnt anything?” Else

recognises that since she did not learn “anything practical,” she does not have any

other choice than to give in to her parents’ wish (21). This shows that due to having

been denied an education that could enable her to build her own future and free

herself from the suppression of patriarchal society, Else has to watch herself being

instrumentalised by her own family to retain their status in society. Thus, Else is

10 Lorenz comes to the same conclusion stating that “Else is a victim of social forces, locked in an interior monologue” (314). However, Lorenz analyses Fräulein Else in the context of “voyeurism” regarding the problem of “vision and control” in the novella, whereas I come to this conclusion through analysing how Schnitzler’s technique of interior monologue reflects her isolation and oppression in patriarchal society.

Stahl 15

subject to an immense social and emotional pressure that forces her to keep her inner

turmoil to herself. Else’s impuissance becomes especially apparent when Herr von

Dorsday reveals his condition:

“Yes, Else, I’m only a man after all, and it isn’t my fault that you are so beautiful, Else…” What does he want? What does he want?… “…I want nothing more, Else, than—to see you.” Is he mad? He does see me. Oh, that’s what he means!…Why don’t I simply go?…I’d like to call him a brute but I can’t. “…You must understand, Else, that my request implies no insult…I’m only a man who…has learnt…that everything in this world has a price…And the sale of what I want to buy this time, Else, much as it is, will not make you poorer.” …He is mad. Why do I let him go on talking? I’m paralysed…He speaks as he would speak to a female slave. I’d like to spit in his face. (45–48)

This quote illustrates the discrepancy between Else’s thoughts and her behaviour.

Even though she feels offended, ashamed and even disgusted by Herr von Dorsday,

impulsively urging to “call him a brute,” “spit in his face,” and leave the scene, she is

“paralysed” and thus, externally, does not show any reaction. Thereby, Else’s

emotional state is only felt by herself and the reader, but remains unnoticed by her

social environment. Thus, the reader witnesses how Else grows increasingly isolated,

repeatedly thinking: “I’m all alone [, since] no one [knows, and hence,] can imagine

how terribly alone [she is]” (29). This contradiction between internal and external is

reinforced by a counterpunctual structure opposing dialogue, written in italics, with

Else’s interior monologue. Furthermore, the vocabulary Herr von Dorsday uses—

“price,” “sale,” “to buy”—depicts how Else becomes a commodity in a business deal

between her father and Herr von Dorsday. Moreover, Herr von Dorsday implicitly

blames Else’s “beautiful” appearance for his “request,” justifying his action with

being “only a man” who cannot help but fall prey to his urges. Hence, Else

experiences how her identity gets limited to her female body—an object of temptation

and commodity like that of “a female slave.”

After this scene, Else’s emotional state gradually deteriorates. Now, one

cannot only detect a discrepancy between Else’s internal world and her external

appearance but also extremely contrasting emotions and thoughts solely within

herself. For instance, while she firstly accuses her father of being complicit in her

fate, thinking that “[he] must have known that Herr von Dorsday wouldn’t give

something for absolutely nothing” and therefore knowingly put her for sale, she

Stahl 16

shortly after defends him, thinking that it “perhaps never occurred to him that

Dorsday would […] ask such an indignity of [her]” (53–55). Also, she repeatedly

vacillates between wanting to refuse to “sell [herself]” and rather commit suicide, and

sacrificing her body and dignity in order to save her father from prison and by that

prevent that he himself might commit suicide (53, 55). This shows how Else is being

internally torn apart by the emotional and social pressure she is exposed to and how

her sense of self is thrown out of balance. After Else learns that the sum has increased

to 50,000 gulden, the pressure on her rises and she ultimately thinks: “What choice

have I? […] I must do everything, everything that Herr von Dorsday asks so that

Father may have the money tomorrow, so that he shan’t be put in prison, so that he

shan’t kill himself” (75). However, trying to find a way to “spoil [Herr von

Dorsday’s] pleasure,” she finally decides that “[if] one sees me, others shall see me.

Yes…Splendid idea! Everyone shall see me” (66, 78). Subsequently, Else undresses

and, only clothed in a coat, leaves her hotel room to go downstairs and bare herself in

front of all hotel guests. When Else sees Herr von Dorsday, she sees her sensations

mirrored in his appearance: “His eyes are threatening. […] His eyes say to me: Come!

His eyes say: I want to see you naked. Well, you swine, I am naked” (91–92). Here

again, it becomes apparent that Schnitzler intrinsically binds Else’s sense of self to her

sensations and perception of her environment. She projects her fear and anger into

Herr von Dorsday’s appearance. This impression is reinforced when Else faints after

revealing herself, but feels relieved, thinking: “My eyes are shut. No one can see me”

(94). Thus, since according to Mach, only our senses are evidence for “the existence

of something,” (Ryan 2) neither her environment nor her actions exist any longer in

Else’s reality.

However, this quote also implies that Else’s anxiety and shame about publicly

losing her honour and integrity, leads to her falling into a childlike magical thinking—

‘if I cannot see you, you cannot see me’. Here, one might argue that Else’s behaviour

evokes Freud’s theory of “regression,” which according to the scholar Eva Mark

defines “a defensive process, a flight from pain and danger [,in which] an [individual]

[returns] to an earlier or more primitive form of mental activity” (348).11 This

11 There are several studies that analyse Fräulein Else and To the Lighthouse in a Freudian context. For instance, Bruce Thompson views Else’s relationship with her father as reflecting a “repressed Oedipal complex” (see 43–46), and Bradley W. Buchanan characterises the relationship between several characters in To the Lighthouse (namely Lily Briscoe and Mrs Ramsay; James Ramsay and Mr Ramsay) as Oedipal ones as well (see chapter 5). Whereas this would also be an interesting and

Stahl 17

interpretation can certainly be applied as well; however, my focus lies on the

conceptualization of the senses in empiricist psychology. Therefore, I argue that

Schnitzler shows how Else tries to block out her sensual—in this case visual—

perceptions and by that emphasises the significance and power of the senses for and

over the inner workings of the mind. In the end, Else feels murdered by her own

society: “You’ve killed me, all of you, all of you” and, in a short moment of

consciousness, drinks a lethal dose of veronal (104). Slowly gliding away into death,

Else’s thoughts, and thus the narrative, cut off in the middle of her words:

I’m dreaming and flying. I’m flying…flying…asleep and dreaming…and flying…don’t wake me…tomorrow…morning… “El…” I’m flying…I’m dreaming…I’m asleep…I’m drea…drea—I’m…fly… (109)

Else’s fading away is illustrated by ellipses and an apposition of incoherent fragments

of phrases and words. That Else now only senses her environment in fragments—

“El…”—depicts not only how she glides out of reality but also how the depiction of

Else’s external world is inherently bound to her individual consciousness: Once she

leaves consciousness; once she loses her senses, the external world loses its existence.

To sum up, Schnitzler achieved to construct a narrative that illumines how the

internal world of his protagonist and its sense of self are affected by the external

forces pressed on Else by society. Through that he, not only, achieves to demonstrate

that individual reality can differ from social reality—that reality is not stable but

depends on perspective—but also, that individual reality is affected and determined

by external social forces.

A traditional narrative with an omniscient narrator would have veiled Else’s

inner turmoil since the oppressive structures of patriarchal society force her to hold up

the façade of the young lady of a respectable family, and thus, forbid her to voice her

despair externally. Thereby, the interior monologue turns into a symbol for the

confinement of women in fin-de-siècle patriarchal society and simultaneously

becomes a tool of social criticism that makes, in Specht’s words, “the unsayable”

sayable (244). Even though the narrative is exclusively told through a highly

subjective perspective, Schnitzler is able to create a bigger picture of the structures

certainly valuable point of comparison, I do not include a Freudian analysis because I am interested in how Schnitzler and Woolf used their narrative techniques to not only display their characters’ interiority but also to exert social criticism. By that I aim to show the development of those techniques towards Woolf’s in connection to the social and historical context out of which they emerged.

Stahl 18

that transform Else into a victim of society. Through counterpointing interior

monologue with dialogue and implicitly linking Else’s inner turmoil to the demands

of patriarchy—marriage, loyalty, sexuality, money—Schnitzler sheds light on the

corrupt and hypocritical character of a society led by men. The latter’s economic

power buys them the right to turn women into a commodity, who, denied of education

and thereby independence, are defenceless in their fate.

However, that Else is purely a victim of society can be discussed

controversially. Lorenz, for instance, claims that Else, in fact, obtains a “sense of

agency in an impossible situation” through not adhering to Herr von Dorsday’s

condition and committing suicide (314). Also, Else repeatedly wants to protest against

patriarchy and the male characters around her as she feels the urge to insult Herr von

Dorsday in reaction to his request. However, Else’s protest remains internal; thus,

externally, Else neither takes action for herself nor voices her despair and anger,

wherefore no one recognises her gradual fall into depression. Additionally, I argue

that even though Else obtains a “sense of agency” by undermining Herr von

Dorsday’s request—showing herself publically and not privately—Else’s suicide

nevertheless reflects her inability to brake free from the oppressive structures of

patriarchy since she commits it out of anxiety of facing the shame, stigmatization, and

social condemnation she would have to experience if she continued living. Thus, in

Schnitzler’s hands the narrative technique of the interior monologue becomes a

medium of social criticism that enables him to travel back in time to Viennese fin-de-

siècle society of 1896/97 and reveal its oppressive structures through the eyes of a

young, ordinary bourgeois girl.

From Narrow to Broad: Free Indirect Discourse in Woolf’s To

the Lighthouse

On discussing modern narrative methods in Modern Fiction, Woolf refers to Joyce’s

narrative technique in Ulysses, criticising that it is “centered in a self which […] never

embraces or creates what is outside itself and beyond” (“Modern Fiction” 10).

Thereby, she spelled out publicly what she had already written down in her diary in

January 1920: “the danger is the damned egoistical self [through which Joyce’s

method becomes] […] narrowing & restricting” (14). This implies that Woolf strove

Stahl 19

for a method that creates a picture of the outside world through the subjective

perspective of consciousness, but in a way not restricted to an individual ego. Since

Joyce developed his narrative technique on the basis of Dujardin’s Les Lauriers sont

coupés (1888) as well as Schnitzler’s Lieutnant Gustl (1900),12 I argue that one can

infer that Woolf would have criticised the same aspects in Schnitzler’s Fräulein Else

due to his use of interior monologue. While Schnitzler was predominantly concerned

with how external events, especially such out of the ordinary, affect the individual

psyche, Woolf aimed to demonstrate through illumining “the inner workings of the

mind” (Olson 43) that human beings are connected with each other—that they share

the “cotton wool” of life, the ordinary that is mostly lived unconsciously (“A Sketch

of the Past” 70, 72). In the subsequent analysis of Woolf’s To the Lighthouse, I will

firstly give a brief summary of the novel and outline its structure. Secondly, I will

demonstrate how Woolf’s use of free indirect discourse leads to a more encompassing

picture of reality than Schnitzler’s interior monologue. Finally, I will show that

Woolf’s narrative technique, like Schnitzler’s, sheds light on the restricted life of

women in patriarchal society, creating, however, a more positive outlook on their

future, implying a progression towards women’s emancipation.

Whereas Fräulein Else depicts only one evening, thus, only a few hours in

Else’s life, To the Lighthouse is structured in a more complex manner. The novel is

divided into three chapters called “The Window,” “Time Passes,” and “The

Lighthouse” with the second chapter only being a narrow passage of 18 pages in a

total of 163. Therefore, the structure of the novel is often declared to be a literary

representation of an hourglass.13 While Fräulein Else’s plot could be easily

summarised, To the Lighthouse is more challenging in that manner. This is the case

because even though the action in Fräulein Else is already reduced compared to a

traditional narrative depicting the succession of events through an omniscient third-

person narrator, it nevertheless consists of a clear storyline leading towards Else’s

death. To the Lighthouse’s action, on the other hand, is reduced even more,

12 In The Cambridge Companion to James Joyce, Schnitzler’s Lieutnant Gustl, of which Joyce owned a copy, is noted as a source for the development of his narrative technique in Ulysses (1922) (Attridge 73). Additionally, the Chinese author Shi Zhecun (1905–2003), who translated Schnitzler’s works into Chinese in the 1930s and onwards, noted ”[…] we owe it to him, to Schnitzler […] to have opened a new path for modern European literature and to have prepared the ground for the appearance in England of Lawrence and of Joyce, great masters in psychology” (qtd. in Rabut and Hsiao-yen, 261). 13 On the issue of time in To the Lighthouse, see Wilson, “Time and Virginia Woolf,” The Virginia Quarterly Review 18.1 (1942): 267–276.

Stahl 20

illustrating ordinary life through the individual consciousness of its characters. “The

Window” depicts one afternoon and evening in the life of the Ramsay family and their

guests at their house on the Isle of Skye. In the first scene, the Ramsay’s youngest

son, James, asks to go to the Lighthouse that day, which is coarsely rejected by his

father, whereupon his mother promises the trip for the following day. Another

character, the young post-impressionist painter Lily Briscoe, attempts to paint a

portrait of Mrs Ramsay and James, failing however to complete it. Finally, the day

culminates in and closes with a dinner party. The second part, “Time Passes,” briefly

outlines the passing of ten years during which the First World War begins and ends,

and records the death of Mrs Ramsay and two of her children. In the last part, “The

Lighthouse,” the remaining family members and guests return to the house and

eventually take the long promised trip to the lighthouse. The novel ends with the

Ramsays reaching the lighthouse and Lily Briscoe simultaneously completing her

portrait.

Regarding narrative technique, the longer first and third part of the novel are

written in free indirect discourse, constructing a picture, rather than a plot, through the

recording of the characters’ stream of thoughts, perceptions, and sensations in relation

to each other and their world around them. The short but clock-wise long second part,

however, is narrated by a narrator disconnected from any human consciousness until

the Ramsays’ housekeeper, Mrs McNab, comes into play and brings the Ramsays

back to life again “with her imagination” (de Gay 120–121). Hence, only by looking

at the hourglass structure of the novel paired with modes of narration that depend on

the existence and non-existence of consciousness, one can detect that Woolf contrasts

psychological time, as in the first and third part, with actual clock-time in the second.

When human consciousness is present, as in the first and third part, time is presented

through the subjective perception of the characters—it is bound to their emotions and

thoughts. The emphasis here is, thus, laid on the emotional time of thought and not on

actual clock-time. This is contrasted with the second part, mostly lacking human

consciousness, in which ten years pass in the course of only 18 pages. This suggests

that Woolf here imagines the time of history—or as she said herself in her essay “The

Cinema” (1926): “[Life] as it is when we have no part in it” (173). Thus, if no human

consciousness is present, external events simply vanish away and become history,

having no direct impact since, according to the scholar Elaine Showalter, for Woolf

Stahl 21

“external [events are] significant primarily for the way [they] [trigger] and [release]

the inner life” (qtd. in Olson 43).

In Fräulein Else, psychological time and clock-time are contrasted as well;

however, with a different effect. While Woolf imagines not only the time of human

consciousness but also the time of history and through that implicitly brings forth her

philosophical understanding of time without consciousness, Schnitzler utilises time

merely as a formal device. He shows, like Woolf, that the stream of thought has its

own emotional time, but uses direct time designations and images of nature as a

means of creating a more accessible and, in that sense, conventional structure to give

the reader guidance.

Furthermore, Woolf’s application of free indirect discourse instead of interior

monologue leads to a more encompassing picture of reality. In Fräulein Else, one can

detect that Schnitzler, in accordance with Mach’s empiricism, was predominantly

concerned with displaying individual reality and the instability of the self. He was

also intrigued with the flowing nature of consciousness, however, his primary interest

as an author with an education in psychology was to reveal the individual psyche and

its destruction through suppressive societal structures. Therefore, the restricted

perspective of interior monologue served his intention to show, even metaphorically,

the confinement of an individual, of a “fragile self” (Lorenz 238), in fin-de-siècle

Viennese society. Woolf, however, was, in fact, less interested in psychological

issues,14 but in accordance with Cézanne, strove to create a more holistic picture of

reality and society through a multiplicity of subjective perspectives. This is especially

apparent in the dinner scene in “The Window,” in which the characters observe each

other and the narrative moves from one character’s thoughts and perception to

another’s:

He was really, Lily Briscoe thought, in spite of his eyes, but then look at his nose, look at his hands, the most uncharming human being she had ever met […]. ‘Oh, Mr Tansley,’ she said, ‘do take me to the Lighthouse with you. I should so love it.’ She was telling lies he could see. She was saying what she did not mean to annoy him, for some reason. (71)15

14 Even though Virginia Woolf’s writings have often been interpreted in their connection to Freudian psychoanalysis, I do not apply psychoanalytical theories in my analysis because Woolf herself wrote in a letter in March, 1932: “I have not studied Dr Freud or any psychoanalyst—[…] my knowledge is merely from superficial talk. Therefore any use of their method must be instinctive” (36). 15 Hereafter, if not noted otherwise, all quotes are taken from Woolf, To the Lighthouse (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008).

Stahl 22

Here, one can detect that Woolf constructs a narrative that allows insight not only into

one character’s consciousness, as in Fräulein Else, but into multiple ones

simultaneously—in this case into Lily Briscoe’s and Charles Tansley’s, two guests of

the Ramsay family. As they sit opposite each other at the dining table, they observe

each other closely and each for themselves internally analyses the other’s behaviour

and body language. As typical for free indirect discourse, the narrative is written in

third-person and past tense, which creates the indirectness of the narrative, and gives

voice to a narrator, i.e. “she said,” as well as the consciousness of more than one

character—as in the dinner scene, to Lily’s and Mr Tansley’s consciousness. This

creates a distance between character and reader rather than a complete merging of the

two as in Fräulein Else’s interior monologue. While the characters can only speculate

what the others think and how they are perceived through interpreting each other’s

body language or entering into dialogue, the reader attains an almost omniscient

perspective as if he/she was hovering over the dining table. The latter is achieved

through the narrator, who appears to zoom in and out of the characters’

consciousness, which creates a multidimensional perspective of the scene. Hence, the

multiplicity of subjective angles, the layering of different perspectives, as in

Cézanne’s post-impressionist paintings, results in a more encompassing picture of

reality and the outside world. In accordance with Russell’s logical atomism, the

external world, thus, is constructed through multiple subjectivities.

Furthermore, as in Fräulein Else, the characters’ internal world contradicts

how they present themselves externally. Even though Lily dislikes Mr Tansley, she

suggests going to the lighthouse together. If the narrative here were constructed as in

Fräulein Else, the reader would only experience Lily’s subjective view and, as her,

would have to guess how Mr Tansley perceives and interprets her behaviour. Since

free indirect discourse, however, is less character-bound and enables the changing of

perspectives, the reader witnesses both characters’ thoughts and perceptions. Through

that Woolf is able to render the tension that lies in the air between Lily and Mr

Tansley as both are aware of the discrepancy between how they converse and how

they actually feel about each other. Hence, Woolf not only mirrors individual

sensations, as Schnitzler in Fräulein Else, but also the collective sensation of Lily’s

and Mr Tansley’s situation. Additionally, I believe this suggests that while Schnitzler

used the discrepancy between internal and external, and secondly the inaccessibility

of the other characters’ minds to emphasise Else’s isolation, Woolf’s multi-

Stahl 23

perspective narrative demonstrates that all humans are, in fact, united in their

isolation—they all share the fact that they cannot read the other person’s mind, which

can be both a relief and a burden.

Furthermore, Woolf’s use of free indirect discourse also serves her intention to

demonstrate that human consciousness is connected with each other through shared

experience:

Lily was listening; Mrs Ramsay was listening; they were all listening. But already bored, Lily felt that something was lacking; Mr Bankes felt that something was lacking. Pulling her shawl around her, Mrs Ramsay felt that something was lacking. All of them bending themselves to listen thought, ‘Pray heaven that the inside of my mind may not be exposed,’ for each thought, ‘The others are feeling this. They are outraged and indignant with the government about the fishermen. Whereas, I feel nothing at all.’ (77)

This quote from the dinner scene in “The Window” depicts a collective experience of

sensation, of “something lacking,” and a collective thought presented as such in

quotation marks: the wish that the boredom and disinterest felt for the subject of

discussion—the fishing market—does not become apparent to the others at the table.

Again, the quote shows the existence of a narrator in To the Lighthouse, who shifts

from presenting a figural point of view—i.e. “But already bored, Lily felt that

something was lacking”—to an omniscient point of view—i.e. “All of them bending

themselves to listen thought.” Through that, Woolf is able to reveal that even though

the characters feel detached from each other, they are, in fact, connected and in total

unity through their thoughts and sensations. In Fräulein Else, this collectivity of

thoughts and sensations is not illustrated, instead the restricted perspective of the

narrative is used to emphasise Else’s isolation and loneliness. This, however, caters to

Schnitzler’s intention to reveal the destruction of an individual identity through a

society that does not allow women a voice. Hence, Woolf’s multidimensional

narrative that voices all character’s consciousness, has a different implication: To

demonstrate that humans are often not alone with their thoughts and sensations, and

that those thoughts and sensations are not individual but common and, as such, shared

by all human beings.16

16 James Naremore in The World Without a Self: Virginia Woolf and the Novel points to the same conclusion, stating that “when [Woolf] is depicting a kind of inner emotional life, she seems to stress that this life is not confined to individuals. Her books are full of scenes where whole groups of people share thoughts and become like a single orgasm […]” (73)—what I call later in the conclusion “group consciousness.” My contribution lies in the comparison with Schnitzler’s interior monologue, whose

Stahl 24

However, it is crucial to note that Woolf also renders thoughts more directly

by occasionally intertwining free indirect discourse with interior monologue:

Suddenly, as if the movement of his hand had released it, the load of her accumulated impressions of him tilted up, and down poured in a ponderous avalanche all she felt about him. […] She felt herself transfixed by the intensity of her perception; it was his severity; his goodness. I respect you (she addressed him silently) in every atom; you are not vain; you are entirely impersonal; you are finer than Mr Ramsay, you are the finest human being that I know […]. (23)

Here, Lily’s intimate sensations for Mr Bankes are recorded in interior monologue. In

contrast to the interior monologue in Fräulein Else, the technique is here not utilised

in order to metaphorically illustrate an imprisonment of the character in society.

Rather, the interior monologue not only reinforces the intensity and intimacy of Lily’s

sensations but also the liberating sensation Lily perceives once her impressions are

“released.” This also evokes Cézanne´s logic of sensations. Through “the movement

of [Mr Bankes’] hand”—an external event—Lily is finally able to make sense of the

impressions she has of him. Hence, whereas Else perceives impressions and passively

sees her sensations reflected but is not able to make sense of them, Lily actively

processes and interprets her sensations. She comes to the conclusion that “it was his

severity; his goodness,” and through that realises that she admires Mr Bankes. Thus,

Lily is able to gain an understanding of her sensations, whereas Else cannot process

hers. Therefore, Else cannot free herself from her emotional impasse, which again

illustrates her internal imprisonment.

The previous close readings demonstrate that whereas Schnitzler’s use of

interior monologue metaphorically reflects Else’s confinement and isolation in

society, Woolf’s narrative technique results not only in a more encompassing picture

of reality but also lends the novel a liberating and optimistic character. This optimism

is also mirrored in the way To the Lighthouse is structured. While Fräulein Else leads

towards the end of the day—into darkness and Else’s death—To the Lighthouse offers

hope and opens up the future as a new day rises despite of Mrs Ramsay’s and two of

her children’s death. Since the interior monologue binds Fräulein Else’s narrative

exclusively to Else’s consciousness, Schnitzler is consequently forced to close the

narrative with her death. Free indirect discourse, on the other hand, allows Woolf to

constantly shift the figural perspective in the narrative, wherefore the novel does not narrow and restricted character stresses the open and encompassing character of Woolf’s technique even further.

Stahl 25

have to close with Mrs Ramsay’s and her children’s death, but can continue due to the

presence of other characters’ consciousness. Since Woolf situated the different

chapters of the novel in different times, the continuation of the narrative in spite of

Mrs Ramsay’s and her children’s death also has a socio-critical implication. As is

widely acknowledged, the first part of the novel is centred on Mrs Ramsay as the

Victorian mother and housewife until the focus shifts towards Lily, the post-

impressionist modern painter, in the last part.17 While Schnitzler reveals the social

structures pressing on Else through opposing her stream of thought with dialogue and

through depicting her inner turmoil, Woolf creates multidimensional characters,

which, through their thoughts, dispositions and behaviour, stand for different edifices

and different social times. Like Else’s, Mrs Ramsay’s life revolves around

domesticity—marriage, family and women’s position as the caretakers and supporters

of their men. Both women feel emotionally exploited but see it as their duty to

maintain the family’s unity and peace. For instance, while Mrs Ramsay, like Else,

externally always upholds the façade of being a content, happy woman, she internally

thinks, concerning her children and motherly duties: “They came to her, naturally,

since she was a woman […]; she often felt she was nothing but a sponge sopped full

of human emotions” (29). While in Fräulein Else the oppressive structures of

patriarchal society are pilloried through her suicide, it is predominantly through Lily

Briscoe in To the Lighthouse that the unequal position of women is revealed. She is

the revolutionary mind that does not want to conform to Victorian values but strives

to be independent: “She would urge her own exemption from the universal law[—

marriage—]; […] she liked to be alone; she liked to be herself” (43). The death of

Mrs Ramsay, hence, stands for the death of the Victorian era and Lily’s continued

existence as the modern thinker and independent woman suggests the emancipation of

women from patriarchal society.

All in all, by voicing multiple human minds and perspectives through free

indirect discourse, Woolf is thus able to oppose different ways of thinking and

different visions of life with each other, and thereby draws a progression of time

towards modernism. The existence of multiple characters enables her to not only

17 To the Lighthouse’s structure and narrative technique has been analysed numerous times in terms of its social criticism, especially concerning feminist ideas and the position of women in society. See, for instance, Uzundemir, ”Challenging Gender Roles Through Narrative Techniques: Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse.” Virginia Woolf Miscellany 70 (2006): 8. Literature Resource Center. Web. 29 Apr. 2016.

Stahl 26

construct a detailed multi-layered picture of reality out of multiple subjectivities but

also to illustrate that the characters, despite their gender and class divisions, share the

patterns of thought. Hence, the narrative suggests that the characters are all connected

with each other through the underlying structure of their thoughts but also through

shared experiences that trigger a collective sensation or thought. Schnitzler’s

narrative, on the other hand, is, through being confined to Else’s consciousness,

consequently forced to remain in the Viennese fin-de-siècle era, whereby he cannot

envision a solution to women’s restricted position in society but merely stays with

unveiling society’s destructive patriarchal structures.

Conclusion

The comparison of Fräulein Else and To the Lighthouse illustrates how stream of

consciousness techniques evolved from interior monologue towards free indirect

discourse. Whereas Schnitzler’s use of interior monologue serves his intention of

depicting the confinement of women in fin-de-siècle society, it also shows that it

restricts the writer in drawing a comprehensive picture of reality. Schnitzler’s

narrative deviates from a conventional plot in that it reveals the consciousness of one

protagonist. However, it still holds on to a more accessible and traditional story-line

structured through clear external events and occasional remarks on clock-time. The

comparison with To the Lighthouse reveals that Woolf’s free indirect discourse allows

more room for artistic experimentation and expression. The narrative’s unbounded

nature not only enables her to shift between illumining various characters’ inner lives,

but also to travel forth in time. In effect, multiple individual consciousness results in a

depiction of a group consciousness that is presented as being able to create a more

truthful and encompassing picture of reality and human thought processes than a

narrative with an omniscient observer and a conventional story-line could. This also

implies that while Schnitzler and Woolf shared the intention to render the “inner

workings of [their characters] minds” (Olson 43), Schnitzler did so in order to reveal

the oppressive structures of society at one point in time, while Woolf aimed to

illustrate society itself and its ability to change.

Furthermore, by disregarding Freudian psychoanalysis, I was able to carve out

the significance of the modernist understanding of the mind as a revolutionary force

Stahl 27

sparking social changes rather than allowing this aspect to become overshadowed by

analysing the mind’s pathological conditions. The female characters in both novels

reveal the oppression of women in society in that they internally realise and express

their struggle with their confined position. However, whereas Else remains a victim

trapped in her own mind unable to break out of society’s structures, Woolf’s multi-

perspectival narrative enabled her to depict how visions of a new modern world are

first and foremost developed in the mind and replace outdated traditional norms and

values. Thereby, Woolf’s use of free indirect discourse represents the liberation from

conventions—in the arts as well as in society—and the emancipation of women.

Schnitzler’s interior monologue, on the other hand, merely displays women’s

confinement and fails to provide a positive outlook as it cannot transcend individual

perspective. This suggests that the issue of women’s emancipation was a driving force

for the development of new artistic techniques in the early 20th century, especially in

the realm of stream of consciousness literature, as the latter enables the artist to give

voice to the formerly silenced.

Finally, the differences between the two techniques also mirror how the

development of stream of consciousness techniques towards free indirect discourse

goes hand in hand with developments in artistic movements. Both authors had the

same aim—illumining human consciousness. However, whereas Fräulein Else can be

seen as a literary representation of Mach’s individual “one-eyed vision” of human

perception (Ryan 9), To the Lighthouse is a literary representation of Cézanne’s multi-

perspectival paintings, intertwining individual perception with the depiction of several

points of views. This illustrates not only the trajectory of impressionism towards post-

impressionism, but also how the depiction of human consciousness evolved from

reflecting a narrow, individual perspective towards a broad, all-encompassing one,

depicting the progression of society towards modernism: The death of the Victorian

mother Mrs Ramsay results in Lily Briscoe, the modern post-impressionist

revolutionary thinker, taking over the centre of the narrative and leading into the

future.

Thus, through comparing Woolf and Schnitzler, which has never been done

before, I was able to show an interconnectedness between artists in the early 20th

century, characterised by their modernist values—rejection of conventions and

experimentation with artistic forms and techniques, which represents the modernist

Zeitgeist of their time. This implicates that modernism needs to be seen as a

Stahl 28

continuum reaching back to the fin-de-siècle, rather than representing a clear break

from previous artistic movements. It is crucial to note, however, that it is not my

intention to claim that Schnitzler directly influenced Woolf’s development of her

narrative technique; instead I argue that the fact that Woolf was familiar with

Schnitzler’s works through the theatre world or magazines such as The Dial

demonstrates that modernism can be seen as a network through which cultural and

historical connections between societies come to light.

Stahl 29

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